Sanovas Launches Updated Endoscopic Imaging Device

Sausalito, Calif.-based Sanovas Inc. has begun the commercialization of the next generation version of its Microcam, a micro-imaging platform for endoscopic device applications.

The updated technology features proprietary software, electronics, sensors and optics designed to provide autonomous imaging capability to most surgical instruments. The company is positioning Microcam to eventually replace large, cumbersome and expensive cart-based systems.

“This is significant innovation that will fundamentally transform the paradigm of endoscopy,” Sanovas CEO Larry Gerrans said. “We are delighted to offer the members of the medical device community the opportunity to re-imagine, re-invent and re-purpose the clinical capabilities of their products and technologies.”

The Microcam is supposed to eliminate the need for camera consoles, camera heads, camera couplers, light sources, fiber optic light cables, rod lens endoscopes and cart based systems. Getting rid of these larger systems would open up space in operating rooms (ORs), sterile storage environments, and also make portability into remote ORs more feasible. If the system is successfully integrated into healthcare facilities as the main endoscopic imaging source, hospitals could cut their endoscopic camera system costs by 80 percent, Sanovas claims.

According to iData Research, a medical device and pharmaceutical research company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, “the overall U.S. video, high-tech and integrated OR equipment market was worth $1.49 billion in 2009. This market, which experienced a strong decline during the economic recession, is expected to recover, exceeding $2 billion by 2016. The shift towards high-definition cameras and displays, improved OR efficiency and increasing surgical volumes will drive the market, particularly in the integrated OR and surgical camera segments.”

It is this trend that Sanovas looks to in predicting a very friendly market for surgical camera devices in the immediate future.

“As minimally invasive surgical procedures become the standard of care, globally, the Microcam will vastly improve the expansion and operative capabilities of the science,” said Gerrans. “Doctors will no longer have to struggle using one imaging source for the duration of their procedure. We can now put ‘eyeballs’ on most any instrument and give the doctor a wide variety of images and viewing angles.”

Sanovas focuses on micro-invasive diagnostics, devices and drug-delivery technologies for unmet clinical needs.